RJ Hamster
The best prospect in baseball is coming
Thursday, April 02
Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Today’s edition is brought to you by David Adler.
Here we go. It’s Konnor Griffin time.
The No. 1 overall prospect in baseball is getting called up by the Pirates and will make his MLB debut tomorrow. He’s 19 years old. But he looks like he’s going to be a superstar.
Tune in for Griffin’s debut when the Pirates host the Orioles for their 2026 home opener at PNC Park at 4:12 p.m. ET (MLB.TV/SportsNet Pittsburgh/MASN).
Teenagers don’t make it to the big leagues very often. But Griffin is talented enough to join superstars like Bryce Harper, Juan Soto and Ken Griffey Jr. as one of the best teen phenoms.
When he takes the field tomorrow, Griffin will be the first teenage hitter to play in a Major League game since Soto in 2018.
This is going to be the most anticipated MLB debut since … well, since Paul Skenes debuted for the Pirates on May 11, 2024. And now we get to see Griffin and Skenes on the same team? Wow.
With Griffin’s arrival, three of MLB Pipeline’s top five overall prospects entering 2026 will already be in the Majors: Griffin (No. 1), the Tigers’ Kevin McGonigle (No. 2) and the Cardinals’ JJ Wetherholt (No. 5).
If Griffin follows in the footsteps of those other two, we’re in for a treat. Wetherholt homered on Opening Day and knocked his first walk-off hit the very next game. McGonigle has been a sensation in Detroit, starting with his electric four-hit debut.
And Griffin? Griffin is the total package. The young shortstop is a five-tool player who hits for contact and power, has excellent speed and is a great fielder with a great arm.
In his first professional season in 2025, Griffin batted .333 with 21 home runs, 94 RBIs and 65 stolen bases in 122 Minor League games.
If you watched Griffin at Spring Training this year, you saw the flashes of what’s to come — like when Griffin crushed a 111 mph, 440-foot home run over the replica Green Monster at the Red Sox spring ballpark.
And in his first week at Triple-A this season? Oh, Griffin is just batting .438. He’s 7-for-16 with three doubles in five games.
He’s ready. So are we.
THIS UK FAN RUNS A MILE FOR EVERY METS HR
Juan Soto smashed his first home run of the season yesterday afternoon. That means one thing: British Mets fan Adam Bayatti is running a mile.
Michael Clair, who wrote a nice feature on Bayatti and his viral challenge, has more:
I have to imagine the best part of hitting a home run is that you don’t have to, you know, run. You get to simply take a delightful stroll, a bit of a gambol, as you trot around the bases.
But for Adam Bayatti, a 12th-year student in Manchester, England, he’s decided to take another approach: He’s running a mile for every home run that the Mets hit.
So far, the Mets have been going easy on Bayatti, who is now better known by his Instagram handle: @TheMetsHomeRunner. After Luis Robert Jr.’s walk-off home run, the Mets went three homerless games before Soto went deep on Wednesday afternoon.
Still, that’s a better outcome than should the team smash seven home runs like they did against the Phillies last year — especially for someone who will have to wake up and find the news of what the Mets did the evening before.
“It is scary, like, if I wake up at half-six in the morning and I see five home runs have been hit. I feel like that’s going to hang over my head a little bit during the day,” Bayatti said. “I’m fine with it as long as they win. If they hit five home runs and lose — I don’t know how that’s possible.”
IT’S MADDUX SEASON IN MIAMI
Was that Greg Maddux on the mound yesterday in Miami?
No, but the Marlins’ ace was out there doing his best impersonation.
Sandy Alcantara threw the first “Maddux” of 2026 against the White Sox. That’s a shutout on less than 100 pitches … a tribute to the Braves legend, who was famously efficient in shutting down his opponents.
Alcantara’s Maddux — which was actually the first complete game in the Majors this season, period — sent the Marlins to a 5-1 start. Alcantara allowed just three hits, struck out seven (including a couple of particularly nasty changeups) and, most importantly, threw just 93 pitches.
The Maddux is one of baseball’s most fun — and best-named — stats. And these days, it’s pretty rare. Pitchers just don’t throw complete games like they used to.
There were only three Madduxes thrown all of last season, the most recent by Sonny Gray on June 27. The only others were thrown by back-to-back Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal on May 25, and by the Rangers’ Nathan Eovaldi on April 1, exactly one year to the day before Alcantara’s.
Alcantara is the current king of the complete game. He’s thrown 13 in his career — including two Madduxes — which is more than any other pitcher since his debut in 2017. No one else is even in double digits (the Tigers’ Framber Valdez is second with nine).
Three times, Alcantara has led his league in complete games. In his Cy Young-winning season in 2022, he threw six of them — as many as any pitcher in a single season in the last decade.
So the first Maddux of the year couldn’t have gone to a better guy.
SPIDER-MAN IS AT IT AGAIN
Human highlight reel Denzel Clarke is up to his old tricks: robbing home runs and making it look easy.
The A’s center fielder had his first robbery of the season yesterday, taking a homer away from the Braves’ Drake Baldwin, the reigning NL Rookie of the Year.
Clarke had five seconds to cover 89 feet back to the wall in left-center, and he had to perfectly time his leap to bring back Baldwin’s drive.
The catch probability on that play, according to Statcast? Just 20%, based on the distance Clarke needed to run back and the time he had to get there. That grades out as a “five-star catch” (anything with a 25% catch probability or lower) — the most difficult tier of outfield play.
No one robs homers like Clarke. As a rookie sensation last season, he earned the nickname “Spider-Man” for that exact reason — Clarke twice climbed the wall in center field to rob home runs from the Blue Jays’ Alejandro Kirk and the Angels’ Nolan Schanuel.
Well, Spider-Man is back. With great home run-robbing power comes great home run-robbing responsibility, after all.
YOSHI + SHOHEI + ROKI = HISTORY
There are so many incredible Japanese players in Major League Baseball today. But the ones on the Dodgers just did something that has never happened before.
Roki Sasaki, Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto started the last three games on the mound for L.A. It’s the first time in MLB history that a team has started three Japanese pitchers in a row.
That’s pretty cool. And they all pitched good games, too. Sasaki, Ohtani and Yamamoto combined to allow just three runs in 16 innings.
- Sasaki: 4 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 4 K
- Ohtani: 6 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 6 K
- Yamamoto: 6 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 K
As Dodgers manager Dave Roberts put it: “These guys are three great men. They’re all different. But this is just a special time in Major League Baseball.”
FORGET ‘IS IT CAKE?’ — IS IT CHICKEN???
The newest culinary creation coming from the Bronx is a real revelation … but it might make fans do a double take. The Yankees’ home opener tomorrow is bringing the first chance for the masses to sample a singular sweet treat.
It’s called the Mini Dessert “Chicken” Bucket.
But what looks like a pair of fried chicken drumsticks is actually ice cream with a chocolate-covered cookie “bone” center and a coating of white chocolate and candied corn flakes to give it that fried chicken look. It’s served in a souvenir mini “chicken” bucket.
Such scrumptious sustenance as ice cream “chicken” is just one exciting new food optionamong the plethora to be found at Yankee Stadium this season. So be sure to bring your appetite when going to see Aaron Judge and the Bronx Bombers.
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